Well, perhaps not all newspapers. The liberal ones will send their Toynbeebots up to the dreadful slums once every five years to wring their hands about why the proles are bitter fat racists. The rightwing ones will pay some toff to churn out 800 words from a golf course bar about why the proles are Speaking For Britain while still being Unwashed, fat, racist and northern.
What they won't do is spend any time there or ask whether the inhabitants of places like Stoke are reacting to a polity and economy that has absolutely no interest – whoever is in government – in managing the transfer from full, mass, employment (Stoke had potteries, coal and steel) to a post-industrial economy. The liberal ones send in the Tristrams now and then like ineffectual missionaries to explain why globalisation is brilliant and they have to get with the programme, and then wonder why the oiks fall for the constant stream of racist bile delivered in simple words by the right. And poor old Labour has to run an election campaign with the lotto voce slogan 'We know Tristram was a selfish prick who ran away at the first sniff of a canapé, but this time it'll be different'.
There's a distinct air of David Attenborough about the media and state's attitude towards places like Stoke, except that he loves his subjects while they are embarrassed by or cynical about those left-behinds. Poor old Stoke - hard to find a babycino or a hedge-fund trader there. What hope do they have? For the people of Stoke, politics is like the weather: it happens to them and there's nothing they can do about whatever is thrown their way.
The danger of a move to the right by a working class with whom Labour had ceased to argue for socialism was not only foreseeable but foreseen. Anything other than capitalism is, I suspect, pretty well unimaginable to the ordinary,apolitical person in Stoke.
ReplyDeleteToynbee descended to self-parody, but the Guardian couldn't see what was wrong with this intelligent man and gift to rhyming slang, Tristram, entitled to a "career". Tom Watson was bang on when he called Tristram a scab.
What a bloody mess! Poor old Corbyn finds himself backed into a corner by his own MPs, passinga motion of confidence and forcing an unnecessary leadership election just when they needed to be fighting back against the Brexit vote.